1. Field of the Invention
The invention is directed to a method and system for tracking items based on a standardized electronic address. The item tracked may be a physical item, including but not limited to a package, a file, a shipping container, a truck, a ship, an airplane, a person, or an animal, or it may be electronic data, including but not limited to network data packets; frames; or files, such as a digital music file, a digital movie file, or digital rights management (DRM) implementations.
2. Related Art
Many systems and methods exist for tracking items such as packages or shipping containers. These systems typically utilize a central database or a group of databases to track movements on a large scale. These systems do not offer an ability to track individuals or items and determine all of the locations that they have visited without using a much larger database to store information on the same. Moreover, in order to relay information related to the tracked items or individuals, an input system (communication) to the database(s) could be extensive and problematic, due to e.g., bandwidth considerations.
For example, if a shipment travels from its origin to a final destination, it likely was loaded on a vehicle, deposited in a warehouse, reloaded on a transport such as a ship, unloaded at a dock, placed in another warehouse, and finally placed on a vehicle to its final destination. Accordingly, eight different locations may be involved, including point of origin and final destination. In various scenarios, many more locations could easily be involved. A person could conceivably visit hundreds of locations in a single day. Such detailed tracking may quickly overwhelm a standard, database-based tracking system and the system to acquire such information could be prohibitively complex. If a large number of people (and/or items) are being tracked, the system could become overwhelmed, since scaling could become a limiting factor.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method and system for tracking that is able to track an item across a large number of locations without generating unmanageable amounts of data.